Consider this example: Burglary rose 9 percent in St. Paul in 2008 compared with the previous year but dropped by the same amount in Minneapolis.

“It’s just not predictable,” said Margaret Jensen, a Hamline University professor of sociology and criminal justice. “We’re better at trying to explain what’s already happened. You would probably have to go two to three years out before we would start to see a pattern.”

Crime rates during the Great Depression were low and, in the decades that followed, haven’t “smoothly followed the ups and downs in the economy,” Jensen said. There’s no consensus among criminologists about the link between crime and the economy.

Still, some police departments are concerned. A recent Police Executive Research Forum survey found 44 percent of 233 responding police departments reported an increase in some crime they believed could be attributed to the economy, including robberies, burglaries and thefts.

St. Paul saw 424 more thefts and 240 more burglaries reported in 2008 than 2007, 7 percent and 9 percent increases respectively, though there were 258 fewer auto thefts, a 12 percent drop.

“Can we use all those statistics and say ‘definitely it’s because of the recession or it’s directly tied to the budget crisis that some categories went up’?” said St. Paul police Assistant Chief Tom Smith. “I couldn’t give you an answer right now. This is going to be a defining year for us to see what happens.”

The uncertainty comes at a time when the budgets of police departments and victim-services agencies are feeling the pinch, too.

Drastic cuts are proposed in St. Paul city services to fill a $44 million budget hole over the next two years. A “worst-case scenario” for the police department could mean 118 fewer officers — 51 through not filling vacant positions and 67 layoffs, according to a memo from Chief John Harrington. St. Paul has about 580 officers now.

Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak said the federal stimulus package saved his city 57 police officers and 27 firefighters for at least a year. St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman has said he’s weighing his options — he is due to make a proposal to the city council in mid-March — and staffers are trying to figure out how many police and firefighter jobs might be saved, at least for a year, through the stimulus package. Coleman has said he hopes to minimize such layoffs.

“Our No. 1 priority is not to cut our core services,” Smith said. “We do not want the budget crisis to have a negative impact on public safety. Say some of the Part 1 crimes (major crimes) increase — if you ask me whether we’ll have enough officers to respond, my answer is going to be, ‘Yes.’ ”

Officers, though, could have to be shifted from investigations to patrol, which might mean investigations take longer, Smith said.

STRESS AND THE ECONOMY

Two contradictory things can happen when the economy goes bad, sociologist Jensen said — there can be more “crime motivation because frustration” goes up, but “crime opportunity” can go down.

“If you’re putting more people out of work, that means there’s typically more guardianship of the home,” said Christopher Uggen, who chairs the University of Minnesota’s sociology department. “You could imagine a decline in crime such as residential burglary if you have large numbers of people home.”

But if people don’t have to wake up early to go to work, they might also stay out later at bars — which could make offenses like drunken driving and assault more likely, Uggen said.

Overall, comparing 2008 and 2007, major crime was down 2.5 percent in St. Paul and 9 percent in Minneapolis.

While Uggen notes that “there’s no huge correlation between the unemployment rate and the crime rate,” one area gives him pause — recent unemployment figures show young men are particularly affected by the downturn in the economy. Men ages 15 to 24 are the demographic most likely to commit crimes, studies have shown.

“The particular characteristics of the most recent layoffs suggest the group is especially crime-prone,” Uggen said. “Does that mean people suddenly will be turning to crime immediately to meet their economic needs? No, but I will say that longer term, as alienation and frustration set in, as unemployment benefits run out, if you see further signs of erosion and deterioration around you, it does put people in the position where they might take some risks.”

St. Paul had a small increase in domestic assault cases in 2008 over 2007, though it didn’t reach the levels seen in years past, Smith said.

Stress over the economy doesn’t cause domestic violence, but it can exacerbate a bad situation, said Cyndi Cook, executive director of the Minnesota Coalition for Battered Women.

“We look at things like if you’re an abuser already and unemployed, you’re home more and there can be an increase in the frequency and severity of beatings,” she said.

Connie Skillingstad of Prevent Child Abuse Minnesota said she’s heard from child-protection agencies across the state about taking on more cases. Skillingstad has been working with families and children for 43 years, and “each time there’s been an economic downturn, we’ve seen an increase in family stress and an increase in families seen by child protection.”

LOWER CRIME AHEAD?

Apple Valley Police Chief Scott Johnson said he hasn’t seen an impact on crime due to the economy but has noticed an uptick in the number of calls about depressed people and suicides.

Woodbury recorded a 19 percent decline in thefts and a 27 percent decrease in burglary through December 2008 compared with 2007, said Police Chief Lee Vague. The 2008 figures showed a 5 percent increase in forgeries and a 6 percent increase in stolen property, Vague said.

“Can we attribute any of this to economy? Not with any certainty,” he said. “We anticipate that these numbers will go up as the economy continues to sour, but again, it is too soon to tell.”

The Washington County sheriff’s office recorded a 2.5 percent decrease in major crime in 2008 from 2007. But Sheriff Bill Hutton noted that there have been more people in the county jail lately — last spring, the daily population averaged between 160 and 175 people; on the morning of Feb. 19, there were 201 people.

Jensen said she can’t predict what will happen to crime, but it might not all be bad.

The economic crisis, she said, “could result in more cautious behavior, more drawing together as a community, which could translate into stable crime rates.”

Bob Shaw, Elizabeth Mohr and Jessica Fleming contributed to this report. Mara H. Gottfried can be reached at 651-228-5262.

Mara Gottfried has been a Pioneer Press reporter since 2001, mostly covering public safety. Gottfried lived in St. Paul as a young child and returned to the Twin Cities after graduating from the University of Maryland. You can reach her at 651-228-5262.

As you comment, please be respectful of other commenters and other viewpoints. Our goal with article comments is to provide a space for civil, informative and constructive conversations. We reserve the right to remove any comment we deem to be defamatory, rude, insulting to others, hateful, off-topic or reckless to the community. See our full terms of use here.

More in News

Helmets in hand, members of the St. Paul Bicycle Coalition arrived at St. Paul City Hall on Wednesday half expecting an easy victory. A plan to install bicycle lanes on little more than a half-mile of Stillwater Avenue, a busy east-west commuter route east of White Bear Avenue on St. Paul’s East Side, drew multiple supporters and a single opponent, who...

Sol Sepulveda, 64, has been singing since she was a little girl. But until Monday, she had never sung in public. She said she’d been scared to, since her father had insisted on her keeping quiet as a child. Sepulveda, a resident at Ebenezer Senior Care’s Minneapolis campus, was a participant of a theater workshop offered by St. Paul’s Teatro...

The drive-through jokes are starting to get a little old at Mama’s Pizza. For the second time in two years, the renowned Rice Street restaurant in St. Paul’s North End was struck by an errant driver, and this time there was a fair amount of damage. Still, owner Tony Mudzinski said he hopes to get back open in a week...

South Washington County Schools apologized and launched an investigation Thursday after personal and transportation data on most of the district’s 18,000-plus students was mistakenly emailed to parents. District administrators were starting to investigate the data release amid concerns about student safety and legal implications that could stem from the public release of private education data. The private data was contained...

Police say a 63-year-old maintenance worker died when he fell to the bottom of a hotel elevator shaft in Superior, Wis. The accident happened Tuesday evening at the Androy Hotel, authorities said. Hotel staff and other witnesses told police and medical staff that the elevator had been malfunctioning, and that the night maintenance worker was trying to fix it. He...